Central Grocery, New Orleans. Got there just in time – about 11:30am, I think. Maybe 5 people ahead of us. By the time we left, just a few minutes later, the line had expanded to twenty.
A little light on the meat, as complaints on Chowhound had indicated, but the olive salad (bought a jar of it, too) more than compensated. At the age of six or so, I was taken to a faculty party with a buffet and at one point the hostess asked, “Where did all the olives go?” My mother knew. Little me, who also at one point a few years later, was delighted to get a jar of cocktail onions in her Christmas stocking. I’m indifferent to sweets, but savories are my weakness. The bread was very fresh, too. Picked up two wholes, ate 1/4 of one down by the “River of Mississippi” as Michael called it, brought the rest home, mostly for David.
Who took one bite and said with a mixture of satisfaction and regret we might call nostalgia, “It tastes like Italy.”
The Napoleon House does a nice muffaletta, too. Of course, that’s a bar — probably not the place for two little boys.
I love olives, too. One Christmas my mom bought all us kids our very own jar of them. I ate mine all at one sitting.
Hmm..wrote this before, but computer went all sorts of crazy. So, for the edification of all, because everything I say is always incredibly important and profound, I will repeat the original post here:
“Color me jealous. Because, well I really am.”
I love your eating related posts and I read that whole Italian menu the other day…being a capers fan. Nothing so small tastes so pungent…excepting herbs like cardamom etc. My daily work at home is risk galore in the markets with levered derivatives (I can talk now… the market turned up for now and I’m green again) and thus the peace of gourmet stores is a fav when the market closes. A food store is peaceful adventure and finally I like that.
Aquinas held that we will not eat in the resurrected state even though Christ in His resurrected state did eat at Emmaus. But Aquinas was a party pooper in a number of areas regarding the resurrected life while he did grant us instant travel for some reason…ie…(OT (Wisdom 3:7): ” In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart about as sparks through stubble.”)
So eating is carnal but flying around isn’t? And…why was Aquinas called the “ox” if he was so restrained at Sixtus Pizzeria or whatever they had then ( apologetics scholars will tell me his mother was northern Euro…hence the size compared to Italians…yeah…right…we have an answer for everything). The man was a three slice man. He was a Dominican not a Carthusian or Camaldolese. Did anyone call John the Baptist “ox”. No. Let’s get real.
I wish I could have gotten a taste of that bread, and the sandwich looks delicious. If you get a chance to, say “Hi” to Paul George who lives down in that area. He tells a great story about food and its way of being the center of everything in New Orleans that I think you would appreciate. God bless you and thanks for posting…
All I can say is, “Yum.”
AMEN SISTER…. It maybe N.O. but tere is no no no unholy way it is as GOOD AS A TAMPA CUBAN SANDWICH.
Long bread you can only get in T town.l mMMMMMM.
I am sending the other household member to go to Publix and get one.
Back when I was in college and visiting my best friend who dragged me to Central Grocery and made me get a muffuletta, I sadly didn’t appreciate it. I didn’t acquire the taste for olives till later in life. Oh but that makes me drool now.